Northumberland pub guide: The Feathers Inn, Hedley on the Hill

The Feathers Inn in Hedley on the Hill, Northumberland is well worth the visit says Alastair Gilmour.

By Alastair Gilmour 22 Sep 2011

The name of the village is a giveaway. Hedley on the Hill is reached via a eardrum-popping, second-gear straining clamber from Stocksfield in Northumberland.

Hedley is high and it’s handsome, and like its sole pub – the Feathers Inn – it’s predominantly stone-built and solid. The pub’s owners have recently returned from an awards ceremony clutching the Publican’s Morning Advertiser Great British Pub of the Year 2011 title, having emerged victorious from the gastropub category. Until four years ago, the Feathers had been in the same ownership for three decades, serving its community as the retreat that befits a former drovers’ inn – but it needed a 21st-century push.

This it got from Rhian Cradock, a locally reared chef with experience at Chez Bruce and the National Portrait Gallery in London, and his partner Helen Greer. Out went the standard keg beers and lagers and in came four cask-conditioned ales, alongside a menu with its base in Northumbrian produce and a wine list dripping with bordeaux not normally found in pubs.

The three-roomed Feathers divides naturally into bar, lounge and dining areas with no formal demarcation. Huge fireplaces and stacked logs form a focus while framed monochrome photographs of the pub’s suppliers – such as Graham Willie with his pedigree Longhorns – offset stone-wall austerity.

Beer-wise, our single-hop Newcastle Pioneer Bitter from Hadrian Border Brewery is an afternoon delight; its lemon and grapefruit sharpness taken down a peg or two by a gathering of biscuit malt. Another handpull promises Mordue Workie Ticket, a former champion beer of Britain, while the “standard” lager is the mighty Pilsner Urquell, the original pilsner style from the Czech Republic.

An eclectic collection of cookery books catch the eye, The National Trust Book of Pies in particular, while Fergus Henderson’s Nose to Tail Eating reveals stuffed lambs’ hearts draped in streaky bacon as someone’s oft-consulted favourite. This sense of adventure influences the menu, with the likes of Stanhope moor grouse and Hedley Angus beef pudding with port and Guinness, creamed cabbage, bacon, mash and watercress (£15), or North Sea lobster, wild cep mushrooms, broad beans and Northumberland heritage potatoes (£13).

It’s said you can see four counties from Hedley on the Hill – we’re standing in Northumberland; one way is Cumbria, the other Tyne & Wear. County Durham’s dales loll behind.

The view and the Feathers Inn’s surroundings are – as the folks who live on the hill say – just champion.

Sunday Sun pub of the Year 2008

Days before Christmas we were given the Sunday Sun Pub of the Year award by Eddy Eats.
The newspaper team came and presented us with the award and we are very pleased to have been chosen.

They wrote "MRS E and I have famously high standards. We don’t expect posh, overpriced fancy food whenever we go in search of scran.
Instead, what we hope to give you each week is a selection of the best eateries in the North where you can get good quality produce, prepared and cooked with care, accompanied by a tasty drop of booze.
And, of course, staff who provide service that makes you feel the centre of attention . . . all in surroundings that are relaxing and inviting.

Helen said: “We are delighted to have won the award. Being named the Sunday Sun pub of the year means a lot as it comes from a regional paper our customers are familiar with. We have had a good year winning awards but we never expected any of them.

“We have a very good team here and it is almost as if we are one small family.

She Who Must be Fed and I visited the pub in July when we experienced a top quality meal. We were impressed by the fact that all the produce, from the potatoes to the beef and pork and the vegetables, were locally sourced.
The food had obviously been cooked with care and there was a good selection of desserts, a fabulous choice of real ales and around 50 wines.


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